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HI! I haven't posted in about a week and a half-no reason why,i just didn't have any coherent thoughts knocking about my brain! I attribute this to my 5 hours a day of screen time(I am but a shell of a person.)
I understand the scientific explanation behind why id rather scroll through the cavernous hellscape of tiktok rather than research an obscure photographer who captures purely women's teeth or something for my college courses - Its instant gratification, it doesn't take as much mental energy to scroll endlessly through my feed whereas research does, etc. I get all of that, i know why it's so lethal to get stuck in the cycle. That begs the question...WHY THE HECK CAN I NOT GET OUT OF THE CYCLE????I am painfully, fourth wall breakingly aware of how liquefied my cup-a-soup brain is. It is MELTING OUT OF MY EARS AT THIS POINT (I'm being dramatic but you get my point...) I feel so much anger towards modern social media.It just isn't....fun? (Another reason i love spacehey <33) I mentioned this a few posts ago but omg the HATE on platforms like tiktok is insane.Tell me why me lip-syncing to an Avril Lavigne comment in my college bathroom warrants the comment "get some exercise fatty"??????? Tiktok profile picture-less commenters get a life challenge! (level impossible!)
My point is that, however jumbled my wording has been, the internet is genuinely not a fun place.It is bleak and harsh and miserable.It is full of propaganda and clickbait and bots (Dead internet theory enthusiast BTW...) But i cannot seem to disconnect from it.I understand that my obsession with it is just another form of indoctrination...If we are making a noise about political and global issues online, we aren't storming a capitol or burning down a building,right? It makes people feel like they are making a difference, even though that difference is only felt in an entirely made up digital space,it doesn't translate into real life (If it did, the world would be a much better place) It also fuels the trend cycle -it keeps exploitative companies (looking at you SHEIN....) and money-grabbing celebrities relevant enough to keep us glued to our screens.If we are gushing over the dress Taylor Swift wore to the Grammy's (Granted she looked gorge) we aren't truly engaging with the actions of corrupted politicians or anything...real? If we are watching edits of awful politicians with an audio clip from the hunger games over the top,we aren't making a noise in our city streets.
I just want things to feel REAL again!!! there was a sweet spot, 2008-2014 id say, where the world felt just right- Just enough tech, just enough internet, but we weren't too far gone yet.Everything feels so digital now.I feel digital.I AM! I am a face on a video lip-syncing to a song on a video sharing app full of thousands of people doing the same thing,waiting to be seen by others,doing the same thing,over...and over...and over...I AM A PERSON!!! I feel more connected to my perfectly curated digital self than my flesh and bone sometimes....I'm always in an outfit on my 100 takes a video, edited and cut with precision tiktok account for fear of being called a poser for DARING to wear comfy clothes IN MY OWN HOME!!! (The SCANDAL!) I think we are all becoming characters, curating ourselves for the digital world rather than the real one.
I hope and pray this makes ANY SENSE. Come back for more unnervingly existential thoughts! I leave you with a low quality photo of my outfit the other day AND and even lower quality of an acrylic painting i did to keep myself human!
-Solly!
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Kavi
I'm sorry for such a HUGE COMMENT!!! I couldn't contain the whole train of thought.
Thanks for your new post! It's nice to see that you don't forget about this place!!! (I'm deader than a mouse hanging in the fridge myself, but anyway, I check the blogs from time to time...).
I'll be honest, when I was in my most depressed phase, all I got high was tiktok. I literally... Sat there eight hours a day on average???? And the joke is that it both delivered dopamine and made me even more depressed. ‘Nobody wants you.’ ‘No one will hear you.’ ‘Nobody has your best interests at heart.’ And all that other bullshit about being alone... I have friends, but sometimes I do feel very lonely.....
I used to feel so much pain! I literally couldn't do anything on my own except drawing.... Watching anime? Need someone to grab... Go play games? I'm bored alone, I need company! So all I had to do was draw, cry and watch tiktok.
But now there's less of that! I finally feel like a human being, especially when tiktok takes me a maximum of half an hour a day ... (And that's just to keep our flame with my mate alive).
What has helped me? I went back to 2014. As silly as it sounds, it worked!!!!
I watch bloggers I used to watch when I was 10-12 years old (it was my favourite youtuber who played minecraft) and rosto get creative! And I've even started to approach my work (drawing) in a simpler way than I did when I was a kid.
I totally. share the idea that people are becoming more digital. It's really pissing me off! I'm starting to forget who I am. It's hard for me to say who I am, what I like... And in fact because of that so many things I would like to do, I don't do (I will someday dare to blog on YouTube on my old cameras.... I will)
But I share so much now and I'm just glad that going back in time has helped me survive in the present.